News, commentary, and analysis of current events in Honduras where cultural forms intersect with political interests, with links to the work of Honduran writers and scholars.

Monday, November 27, 2017

The TSE reports... the Alianza is in the lead

It took them until almost 2 in the morning in Honduras, but finally, the TSE has made an official statement.

Not calling the election: they will continue to count votes until they are finished.

But with 59% of the votes counted officially by the TSE, the reported proportion of votes is:

Salvador Nasralla 45.7%
Juan Orlando Hernández 40.21%

A couple of things to note:

The TSE also said it may be Thursday before they get to some of the votes. They have yet to post the vote totals on their website, which will allow us to assess which parts of the country have been counted, and see whether the votes not yet counted could change the outcome.

At the same time, to come out with such a strong and marked difference in favor of Nasralla might suggest that the TSE thinks this pattern is likely to hold up; otherwise, we would expect them to maintain a more cautious approach, perhaps reporting a lower proportion of the counted votes with a tighter field.

The next few days will be tense and it is critical that international observers keep watching.